The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities

Book excerpt: Highlighting the geopolitical and economic circumstances that have prompted migration from Hong Kong and mainland China to Canada, The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities examines the Chinese Canadian community as a simultaneously transcultural, transnational, and domestic social and cultural formation. Essays in this volume argue that Chinese Canadians, a population that has produced significant cultural imprints on Canadian society, must create and constantly redefine their identities as manifested in social science, literary, and historical spheres. These perpetual negotiations reflect social and cultural ideologies and practices and demonstrate Chinese Canadians' recreations of their self-perception, self-expression, and self-projection in relation to others. Contextualized within larger debates on multicultural society and specific Chinese Canadian cultural experiences, this book considers diverse cultural presentations of literary expression, the “model minority” and the influence of gender and profession on success and failure, the gendered dynamics of migration and the growth of transnational (“astronaut”) families in the 1980s, and inter-ethnic boundary crossing. Taking an innovative approach to the ways in which Chinese Canadians adapt to and construct the Canadian multicultural mosaic, The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities explores various patterns of Chinese cultural interchanges in Canada and how they intertwine with the community's sense of disengagement and belonging. Contributors include Lily Cho (York), Elena Chou (York), Eric Fong (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Loretta Ho (Toronto), Jack Leong (Toronto), Jessica Tsui-yan Li (York), Lucia Lo (York), Guida Man (York), Kwok-kan Tam (Hang Seng Management College), Eleanor Ty (Wilfrid Laurier), and Henry Yu (British Columbia).